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We are absolute superfans of everything from floating Nutella to pigtails framed by out-of-this-world space pics! Artemis II and her crew are an admirable blend of competency, humility, and pure joy. The best of humans doing something extraordinary. With splashdown now a happy success, it’s time to revel in the wonder of what has just been accomplished.
How Artemis II and her crew inspire
As I write these few words about inspiring humans, I’m getting a little education on how the Artemis II crew is to be transported from their craft to the medical bay. They’re about to fill their lungs with Earth air once again. Feet firmly planted on our little orb, they’ll turn their attention toward helping their bodies readjust to the pull of gravity.
The crew is comprised of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen (Oh, Canada!). If you’re like me, you’ve likely been a bit taken up with the many messages that have been beamed down to us from journey. Messages of integrity, togetherness, compassion, and achievement.
Waiting hopefully-expectantly for them to safely poke their noses out into Earth’s sea air feels like we’re, somehow, all connected by those messages.
Messages like…
Koch: “We will explore. We will build.” She goes on, “We will build ships. We will visit again.” Then, “We will construct science outposts. We will drive rovers.” And, “We will do radio astronomy. We will found companies.” Finally, “We will bolster industry. We will inspire. But ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”
Then, Glover: “Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful. And from up here, you also look like one thing. Homo sapiens, all of us, no matter where you’re from or what you look like, we’re all one people.“
Hansen: “As we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration. We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear. But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.”
And lastly, Wiseman: “No matter how long we look at this, our brains are not processing this image in front of us. It is absolutely spectacular, surreal. I know there’s no adjectives. I’m going to need to invent some new ones to describe what we are looking at out this window.”
Our global community and reaching for the stars
The Artemis II mission is, these intrepid explorers have often noted, the outcome of ingenuity and effort be hundreds of people. People working together in concert, across nations. Then putting ingenuity and effort into inspirational execution.
(As I write, mission control has taken the microphone. In the background you can hear the cacophony of humanity working, waiting, expecting, and thinking ahead. Furthermore, even as they await the transport of The Four via army transport helicopters to med support, mission control is already talking about missions yet to come!)
Artemis missions “to the moon and beyond” will be the effort of women and men around the world.
Beyond Artemis II
Jubilation has just broken out at mission control as the first crew member emerged from Integrity. The rousing and inspiring success of this mission will compel the NASA program forward for decades to come.
Our Canadian representative on board, Jeremy Hansen, has proven to be a joyful sage at every grip of the mic. Leading up to departure, and in flight, his commentary has been both playful and evocative. Instructing us to “live in our integrity,” he often notes the Anishinaabe seven sacred teachings (respect, love, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, truth) that are represented on his flight patch.
These are values we can all lean into, hey? These are the values that pulse through humanity — the very best of who we are in individually, and in community. The very best of who we can be even while our feet are firmly planted on terra firma. Hansen’s gentle challenge to himself, then to his children, and out beyond to all of us, is to live deeply into the best of who we all can be. A sage call to lovingkindness that resounds, now, to the moon and back.
